In today’s environment, companies in Sandy Springs rely on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their company. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
access to The net will become increasingly vital to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The net will only grow as time goes on.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your company in Sandy Springs, Georgia need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your business. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Sandy Springs? Do remote places rely upon you?
Have you thought about what happens to your company if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime essential to the success of your company? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
Companies in Sandy Springs need access to the internet for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Internet access may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have 50 employees who are using the internet simultaneously, you may need more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemHowever, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you performing routine backups? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Organization high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Sandy Springs, Georgia that have already been wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Does your organization host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. If the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various locations?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the web you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Sandy Springs, Georgia even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple providers or circuits. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, offers far better protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Sandy Springs. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central sites. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The net will be far greater than you may realize. Consider the following:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What happens to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Are the calls going to be dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. What happens if your circuit crashes? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Disseminate needed information and data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your organization. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Does your company completely rely on the net? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are now officially out of business. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You clearly have many options. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. In summary:
If you are a small organization, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be adequate. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Sandy Springs, Georgia requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. To repeat, availability and prices vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run organization.
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